The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

“Yes, yes, indeed, Blandina,” exclaimed Benicia, “they had no chance at all last night, for we danced until dawn, and perhaps they were afraid of Don Thomas Larkin.  But we shall talk and have music to-night, and those fine new tables that came on the last ship from Boston must not be destroyed.”

“Well, if you really think—­” said Blandina, who always thought exactly as Benicia did.  She opened a door and called:—­

“Flujencio.”

“Well, my sister?”

A dreamy-looking young man in short jacket and trousers of red silk entered the room, sombrero in one hand, a cigarito in the other.

“Flujencio, you know it is said that these ‘Yankees’ always ‘whittle’ everything.  We are afraid they will spoil the furniture to-night; so tell one of the servants to cut a hundred pine slugs, and you go down to the store and buy a box of penknives.  Then they will have plenty to amuse themselves with and will not cut the furniture.”

“True!  True!  What a good idea!  Was it Benicia’s?” He gave her a glance of languid adoration.  “I will buy those knives at once, before I forget it,” and he tossed the sombrero on his curls and strode out of the house.

“How dost thou like the Señor Lieutenant Russell, Benicia?”

Benicia lifted her chin, but her cheeks became very pink.

“Well enough.  But he is like all the Americans, very proud, and thinks too well of his hateful country.  But I shall teach him how to flirt.  He thinks he can, but he cannot.”

“Thou canst do it, Benicia—­look! look!”

Lieutenant Russell and a brother officer were sauntering slowly by and looking straight through the grated window at the beautiful girls in their gayly flowered gowns.  They saluted, and the girls bent their slender necks, but dared not speak, for Doña Francesca Hernandez was in the next room and the door was open.  Immediately following the American officers came Don Fernando Altimira on horseback.  He scowled as he saw the erect swinging figures of the conquerors, but Benicia kissed the tips of her fingers as he flung his sombrero to the ground, and he galloped, smiling, on his way.

That night the officers of the United States squadron met the society of Monterey at the house of Don Jorje Hernandez.  After the contradanza, to which they could be admiring spectators only, much to the delight of the caballeros, Benicia took the guitar presented by Flujencio, and letting her head droop a little to one side like a lily bent on its stalk by the breeze, sang the most coquettish song she knew.  Her mahogany brown hair hung unconfined over her white shoulders and gown of embroidered silk with its pointed waist and full skirt.  Her large brown eyes were alternately mischievous and tender, now and again lighted by a sudden flash.  Her cheeks were pink; her round babylike arms curved with all the grace of the Spanish woman.  As she finished the song she dropped her eyelids for a moment, then raised them slowly and looked straight at Russell.

“By Jove, Ned, you are a lucky dog!” said a brother officer.  “She’s the prettiest girl in the room!  Why don’t you fling your hat at her feet, as these ardent Californians do?”

[Illustration:  “Russell crossed the room and sat beside Benicia.”]

“My cap is in the next room, but I will go over and fling myself there instead.”

Russell crossed the room and sat down beside Benicia.

“I should like to hear you sing under those cypresses out on the ocean about six or eight miles from here,” he said to her.  “I rode down the coast yesterday.  Jove! what a coast it is!”

“We will have a merienda there on some evening,” said Doña Eustaquia, who sat beside her daughter.  “It is very beautiful on the big rocks to watch the ocean, under the moonlight.”

“A merienda?”

“A peek-neek.”

“Good!  You will not forget that?”

She smiled at his boyishness.  “It will be at the next moon.  I promise.”

Benicia sang another song, and a half-dozen caballeros stood about her, regarding her with glances languid, passionate, sentimental, reproachful, determined, hopeless.  Russell, leaning back in his chair, listened to the innocent thrilling voice of the girl, and watched her adorers, amused and stimulated.  The Californian beauty was like no other woman he had known, and the victory would be as signal as the capture of Monterey.  “More blood, perhaps,” he thought, “but a victory is a poor affair unless painted in red.  It will do these seething caballeros good to learn that American blood is quite as swift as Californian.”

As the song finished, the musicians began a waltz; Russell took the guitar from Benicia’s hand and laid it on the floor.

“This waltz is mine, señorita,” he said.

“I no know—­”

“Señorita!” said Don Fernando Altimira, passionately, “the first waltz is always mine.  Thou wilt not give it to the American?”

“And the next is mine!”

“And the next contradanza!”

The girl’s faithful retinue protested for their rights.  Russell could not understand, but he translated their glances, and bent his lips to Benicia’s ear.  That ear was pink and her eyes were bright with roguish triumph.

“I want this dance, dear señorita.  I may go away any day.  Orders may come to-morrow which will send me where I never can see you again.  You can dance with these men every night of the year—­”

“I give to you,” said Benicia, rising hurriedly.  “We must be hospitable to the stranger who comes to-day and leaves to-morrow,” she said in Spanish to the other men.  “I have plenty more dances for you.”

After the dance, salads and cakes, claret and water, were brought to the women by Indian girls, who glided about the room with borrowed grace, their heads erect, the silver trays held well out.  They wore bright red skirts and white smocks of fine embroidered linen, open at the throat, the sleeves very short.  Their coarse hair hung in heavy braids; their bright little eyes twinkled in square faces scrubbed until they shone like copper.

“Captain,” said Russell to Brotherton, as the men followed the host into the supper room, “let us buy a ranch, marry two of these stunning girls, and lie round in hammocks whilst these Western houris bring us aguardiente and soda.  What an improvement on Byron and Tom Moore!  It is all so unhackneyed and unexpected.  In spite of Dana and Robinson I expected mud huts and whooping savages.  This is Arcadia, and the women are the most elegant in America.”

“Look here, Ned,” said his captain, “you had better do less flirting and more thinking while you are in this odd country.  Your talents will get rusty, but you can rub them up when you get home.  Neither Californian men nor women are to be trifled with.  This is the land of passion, not of drawing-room sentiment.”

“Perhaps I am more serious than you think.  What is the matter?” He spoke to a brother officer who had joined them and was laughing immoderately.

“Do you see those Californians grinning over there?” The speaker beckoned to a group of officers, who joined him at once.  “What job do you suppose they have put up on us?  What do you suppose that mysterious table in the sala means, with its penknives and wooden sticks?  I thought it was a charity bazaar.  Well, it is nothing more nor less than a trick to keep us from whittling up the furniture.  We are all Yankees to them, you know.  Preserve my Spanish!”

The officers shouted with delight.  They marched solemnly back into the sala, and seating themselves in a deep circle about the table, whittled the slugs all over the floor, much to the satisfaction of the Californians.